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Steel Devil Style (Remake) + Short Story

The Delzahn noble prince roared with laughter as wine spilled from his goblet, the tension recently been plaguing him undone in a single potent moment of catharsis.

“I can hardly believe those Tal’dim bastards are gone. Those nomadic bastards have been at me for so long that I thought I’d never be rid of them.” The Prince says with a smile, gazing upon a moonlit view of the Chiaroscuroian harbor. “Sheikh Han once again you have performed miracles for my family.”

“This goes far above and beyond a mere blood oath! Now that the Tal’dim are out of the picture our shipments to Gem and Paragon can now proceed virtually unhindered, all because of you.” The Orkhan Prince says moving over on his sofa, snapping his fingers to make a nearby servant girl emerge with an empty goblet. “Tonight calls for only the finest of wines and poppies that my family has in its possession, and you are welcome to every bit of it.”

Sheikh Han’s beams brighter than the moon shining in the night sky as he sits next to his prince, holding his goblet up to the servant girl that begins to fill it wine. “As fine of a warrior I am I didn’t do such a thing singlehandedly.”

Prince Rashid lifts an eyebrow as he looks upon Rashid. “Oh? The very man who fought off a dozen men all by himself and who used a single Fang of raiders to victory outnumbered two to one needed help?”

“Oh I assure you this tale is no less riveting milord, but against the forces of the Tal’dim I had to employ something a little more… unorthodox.” Sheikh Han says leaning against the couch’s silk pillows. “I had to go deep in the depths of Chiaroscuroian’s underground dueling rings. There I found their Champion and recruited her to our cause.”

“A commoner woman? The Undercity’s premier dualist? How the mighty have fallen.” Prince Rashid chides. “A champion’s services do not come cheaply. What prince did she say for her services?”

“She wished to talk about a marriage proposal and becoming the wife of your family milord. She is of Delzahn blood from the clan of Bahiya, but her skill with the blade is matched only by her beauty. If I may my prince, I believe I found a valuable gem in the midst of coal.”

The Prince was loathing to let someone of common blood within his noble family, but even more he hate leaving debts unpaid, especially as something as significant as this. “…I suppose I can introduce her to one of my sons and make him take her as his wife. When would I be able to meet with this Bahiya?”

“I brought her along.” The Sheikh says as he claps his hands twice. As if on cue a young woman steps in the room, wearing a brilliant red set of harem pants and bikini top. Her bare shoulders show slender arms showing skin so delicate that it puts the transparent cloth extending from her armbands to her choker to shame. Her long hair is as black as midnight but the smile upon her face radiant as the noonday sun.

Prince Rashid nearly dropped his own drink in shock. Forget finding a jewel, Han managed to find a diamond so radiant that even Gem’s finest artisans would be jealous. “She’s the Undercity’s Champion?”

“I too shared your disbelief milord, but being a Champion is only one of her many roles. Her side job is of a dancer. Bahiya, show our beloved Orkhan what other talents you have.”

Bahiya gives a small bow as she begins to move to the tune of the music played by the nearby musician. Slow elegant movements smoothly flowing from one into another accompanied by quick movements of her hips, her movements reflected upon the guard’s glass armour. Rashid now realized that he’d have to thank Han twice over; finding a woman as skilled as this before becoming scarred by any future battle. A sublime desert rose such as this would be wasted on his sons. If anything she could become a valued concubine of his own, a bodyguard whose beauty is matched only be her skill in the battlefield. It was only when the Prince noticed the gleam of Bahiya’s twin golden blades that he realized that desert flowers from cacti.

With a graceful spin Bahiya jammed one of her blades in the throat of a nearby guard before following up with a graceful uppercut, the glass armour providing all the protection of paper as she vivisected the guard.

Screams erupted from the servant girls in the room as two other guards immediately readied their spears and began to charge the woman. Before Han even had a chance to stand up Bahiya had already moved towards both of the guards, the guards spear sliding along the flat of Bahiya’s blade before executing a masterful spin that cut the guard’s stomach wide open and bringing it down upon the second guard’s head before he had a chance to strike.

“Traitorous whore! GUARDS!” Han called out as he pulled out his own glass blade and readied himself. A half dozen guards immediately entered the room, a dozen metal tips now pointed at the woman in the center, calmly assuming a one-legged stance with a blade both in front and over her head.

Han’s grip around his blade tightened as he measured his opponent. He forcefully qwelled his racing mind’s thoughts on how she could’ve possibly managed to sneak past blades that size without him knowing, everything was now focused on how to engage the warrior in front of him. This woman managed to kill three guards within seconds, and foolishly rushing in would only invite death just as fast. His eyes darted across her body taking note of the slightest movement and her arrogant smile before taking action.

Han had barely taken a step before an overhead strike was made from Bahiya, Han quickly raising his glass sword to deflect the golden blade. It was only when he saw his wrists fly up in the air liberated from his body that he had fallen for a feint.

A moment of silent befell the room as the dance crouched low to the ground, a vortex of howling winds surrounding her for only a second. The stunned guards barely having time to process seeing the mighty Sheikh Warrior fall in battle before Bahiya executed a graceful pirouette, spinning full circle before landing her blades upon Han once more. Han was carved as if he were nothing more than a wild boar. The guards around the dancer collapsed into bloody heaps just as unrecognizable as their Sheikh leader. Seconds later Han’s hands and blade finally fall down upon the ground, landing on the serving tray in front of Prince Rashid.

Prince Rashid’s face went as pale as a ghosts as he witnesses his longtime personal champion fall along with a dozen armed men in several heartbeats. But what terrified him most was when the dance walked over to him, the sunburst mark of the Forsaken shining upon Bahiya’s brow.

Bahiya nonchalantly walked over to the terrified prince and gave a deep bow towards him. “Good evening Orkhan Rashid, allow me to personally introduce myself. My name is Bahiya Shahrazad and my title is the Dancer of Ten Thousand Blades.” Bahiya lifted her head up showing the same gentle smile she had when she first entered the room. “I would like to discuss the recent shipments of people you’ve been sending to the Firestorm Court and how we could put a stop to that~.”

Want to know why this exists?

But why did I remake the style? Here are the reasons:

1) Double Attack Technique is too RNG based.

Double Attack Technique is nearly the central point of the entire style. In order to keep their damage up a character is expected to fire this off on opponents. It fires off by attempting to use threshold successes to “spill over” and see if you hit twice. This is a horrible design decision because firing it off *when you really need it to* isn’t going to happen.

Let’s take a standard enemy with 5 defense. If you have a dual short daiklave Steel Devil Style user with 16 accuracy at base then landing an attack has a 90% chance of hitting, using Double Attack Technique and hoping it fires off means a 40% chance of that actually succeeding, while a Triple Attack is 10%. The chances of Double Attack firing off is a bit tricky, and while Triple is much harder to pull off the damage it gives… woo boy that’s a good boost. So you know what, that’s fine.

But what if we fight an enemy with 7 defense? One who’s more than likely going to be a boss or at least a tough opponent if they have a defense that high. 16 dice vs 7 defense is a 70% chance of hitting. Now what if we want to use Double Attack on him? The chances of that successfully activating at are… 5%.

…Well shit. Better start praying to RNGesus to be kind to you that day. Forget about even dreaming about landing a Triple hit attack against such an opponent.

But Sandact! I/My players never had any problems with Steel Devil! We worked as a team to bring down their defense! This should be easy to do so as not everyone in the setting has Solar tier defenses!

This argument falls to pieces with literally every other current MA doesn’t doesn’t fall flat on its face when forced to perform by itself. Tiger style likes getting threshold successes, but its in no way beholden to its threshold multipler to ruin a person’s day. Single Point automatically adds +5 damage to attacks with Liquid Steel Flow (I mean who doesn’t have 5 dex), Falling Scythe Flash gives a fair bit of damage before needing halos to do additional bonuses, Silver-Voiced Nightengale Style functions better in a group but you can still belt out a swan song and outright vaporize someone by your lonesome. You can use *literally any published style* as an example here and it will do better than RAW Steel Devil against higher defense opponents, effectively robbing their main and probably their most vital charm in the style away from their opponent.

And Solar tier defense? If you even *half* the defense penalties someone takes Steel Devil style’s offense goes down drastically. It may hit harder than some other martial arts on withering attacks, but its utter unreliability makes that an iffy proposition.

But even IF you fight an opponent that’s been worn down by your circle then other MA’s still come out on top! You can straight out nova the opponent using your best attacks to try and kill them! Steel Devil STILL relies on RNG to begin its death combo! A death combo that’s also horribly expensive and other Martial Arts can do for way cheaper or apply more damage (Except maybe the Immaculate styles, but that’s another story).

The version I present here still has some RNG, but has at minimum a 50/50 chance of landing a Double Attack Technique on the opponent. That is far more acceptable.

2) Charms too strong

The power of this style is just all over the damn place. Yes, it’s a bizarre paradox, but Steel Devil is overpowered in the areas that make it engaging. Dual-Slaying Stance gives an extremely generous +2 to defense in its form and automatic decisive counterattacks. Crane would kill for the ability to make decisive counterattacks all day and that’s the defensive counterattack style! Twin-Blade Defense also bloats your defense incredibly high to the point where you barely need PD’s anymore. As a Solaroid you’ll be getting a max excellency defense boost for the cost of… 3i. This can be kept up virtually indefinitely so long as your attacks break through an opponent’s soak. This level of defense makes it aggravating to fight against and narratively dull as dishwater compared to something like Crane which has massive pieces of fluff regarding peace and being a bodyguard.

There’s also Seconds Between Strife which is probably one of the best rush charms in the entire game. Triple Attack, IF it fires off, is one of the best damage adders in the game for its cost. The amount of threshold successes you probably needed to activate it plus the massive (DEX+CHARGE) damage boost is likely going to crash anyone, or at the very least put you at the top of the initiative charts.

These things needed to be reigned back a bit, so I combed them into other interesting charms to use.

3) Way too many charms

13 charms is a lot of stuff to learn for a Martial Arts. The capstone combines both forms yes, but it makes for a lackluster capstone compared to other MA’s. Even Dervish Blade Frenzy is just a “do more damage” charm combined with an automatic Triple Attack Technique on it (Which isn’t as impressive as your charge is gonna be shit after Empty Mind Strike or you paid a 4m 1i 1WP tax in order to get to the thing you want). I redesigned this to make an impressive capstone that’s should at the very least be on par with other martial arts capstones, bringing a “Wow!” factor to it that you can’t get with raw numbers. I also reduced the number of charms to get to the capstone. There are repurchased, but you can make it to the end of the style in 10 charms. A bit more than normal but still not terrible.

But enough rambling, onto the style!

An elegant dance of shimmering steel that waltzes across the battlefield leaving nothing by blood and carnage in their wake. Masters of the Steel Devil Style are unquestioned sages of dual wielding blades in battle, and once their battle tempo builds up to a fever pitch they become nearly unstoppable. The silver blurs of metal cascade through the air as if they were raindrops while opponents find their attacks hitting a metal wall in response. The uneducated say that masters of the style control the style by putting their fighting skill in one hand and killing intent in the other, martial arts masters will know that quite often Steel Devil master are ambidextrous and can use both weapons with equal devastating efficiency.

Steel Devil style sees use all across Creation, but are known particularly well amongst the South. Many Sultans refuse to see dancers who practice sword dancing regardless of the beauty they may have lest they become the center at a tornado of blood.

Steel Devil Weapons: Steel Devil style can only be used with paired, dual wielded swords. Any sword is fine. The stylist can use any charms of this style to enhance her attacks or parries with dual blades. Unarmed attacks are not compatible with this style. There is a rumored variant of this style in the North that uses twin axes instead.

The dancer grasps a blade in each hand and makes a lightning speed draw - a technique designed for ending a fight before it starts. This charm supplements a join battle roll with any ability adding (2 or Essence, higher) automatic success to her roll. Additionally if the dancer wins her battle roll she may preemptively shift successes from her join battle result into her tempo pool (See the charm Battle Rhythm below). If she wins join battle she immediately gains a single point of tempo into her tempo pool.

Sidebar: What is the tempo Pool?
The dancer taps her feet in order to prepare a rhythm that beats in her soul for the upcoming battle, a tempo that pulses in her ears faster and faster until a rising crescendo finishes aloud in her ears. The tempo pool comes from the very rhythm of battle itself, a special resource that may be spent on charms of this style. Whenever the Dancer manages to damage an opponent she may convert up to (2 or Essence, whichever is higher) points of initiative into tempo for herself. The Dancer cannot store more than (Dexterity + Essence) charge unless stated otherwise in a charm’s text.

The Steel Devil stylist’s secret to defense is not using both swords at once to help defend, but rather sharing the burden of defense amongst two swords. The stylist may half any onslaught penalties to her defense, rounded down, and if she successfully parries an attack she may nullify the onslaught penalty she was supposed to take.

Mastery: The dancer may reduce the cost of this charm by 1m per time she activates this charm per round. If Steel Devil Form is up the 1i cost only needs to be paid once per round.

This is a bit on the strong side, but I’m aiming to be able to take on multiple people at once with this style. This isn’t as strong as White Reaper’s but certainly evens the odds.

The basis of offense for any Steel Devil, keeping a single opponent bombarded with blistering offense or becoming a dervish of death for those all around him. This charm is reflexive but may only be activated on the dancer’s turn. Upon activating this charm the dancer may activate a secondary attack against against a nearby opponent. This charm has one of two effects depending on when its used:

She may activate this charm after successfully landing an attack on an opponent but before damage is calculated. She may activate this charm to launch a second attack on the opponent which if she hits adds (Dexterity or Performance, lower) additional dice on the primary damage roll. Both of these attacks apply onslaught as normal.

She may activate this charm to make a secondary withering attack on a nearby target that has a base damage of ([Dexterity or Performance, lower] + tempo/2) or full damage on Insignificant/Strong type opponents. The attack is soaked as normal and does not reward the dancer with any additional initiative unless you crash someone. Any charms/evocations used to supplement the main roll do not apply on the second.

The dancer may repurchase this charm at Martial Arts 5 Essence 3 in order to unlock Triple Attack Technique. This special technique can only be activated when the stylist is in Steel Devil Form and lands a successful Double Attack Technique, allowing the dancer to reroll up to (Essence) damage dice per threshold success from either hit.

With her twin blades as her partners the dancer assumes the ballet of the Steel Devil, dispatching foes as swiftly as she changes grips on her blades. Upon assuming this form the dancer increases the defense bonus provided by her weapons to +1 or if her weapons already have such a thing increases her defense by +1. She also reduces the cost of Double Attack Technique to 0m, allowing her to effortlessly strike with multiple blades. She adds +2 to her tempo score and the maximum cap she is allowed to have for tempo and increases this value by 1 each time she crashes an opponent (once per opponent per scene). Lastly she ignores all off-hand penalties with her weapon. As an interesting side note the Dancer may learn the Ambidextrous merit after having known this form for at least a year paying the normal XP cost for doing so, many often do.

A dancer may reflexively assume this form whenever she manages to crash an opponent.

Protip: Secondary attacks and speed
Some games may find the game slows down too much when using secondary attacks all the time. The remake of this style depends on them, but if you want some methods to speed this method up here’s a useful tip/ Against standard (Special if using Strong type homebrew) opponents use the same attack roll only minus two successes. Attacks against insignificant/strong opponents use the results of the same attack roll. Do not share the same attack roll with Steel Devil Strike, as it becomes too easy for an opponent to bloat their defense if they know the result beforehand (and they definitely will if they know a decisive attack is incoming).

Death follows swiftly after the strike of a Steel Devil dancer, their strike only revealed as a feint as an immediate killing blow rains down upon the opponent. This charm may be activated upon a successful withering attack, allowing the dancer to make a decisive attack with a damage equal to the initiative reaped from the withering attack. If this charm is activated a successful Double Attack Technique (or form attack) on the opponent then the attack ignores hardness equal to the dancer’s current tempo. It does not reset the dancer’s current initiative.

The Dancer may repurchase this charm at Essence 3+ in order to unlock Cascading Iron Tempest, a special version of Steel Devil Strike that may only be used after performing a successful Double Attack Technique whose damage is equal to or greater than the remaining tempo left to be filled or after a Steel Devil Strike that does at least half the wielder’s current tempo in damage. This version instead expends tempo in order fuel the damage for the attack on a one-per-one basis. If the dancer expends all of her charge with this attack the damage is increased by (Essence) bonus dice.

Mastery: When in Steel Devil form and the user successfully damages her opponent with this attack she regains her point of temporary willpower. This includes Cascading Iron Tempest.

Just as an attack moves past the dancer’s first blade the second comes to intercept at the last moment. This charm upgrades Twin-Blade Defense, allowing her to spend up to (Dexterity or Performance) tempo in order to increase her soak on a one-per-one basis. If she spends her maximum possible bonus she adds an additional (Essence/2) soak to her total.

Mastery: The dancer may pay 2i 1WP to immediately activate this feature after being hit but before damage is rolled. This cannot be used while in crash.

The Devil’s Dancer learns how to strike without thought, her body seamlessly weaving into a counterattack after deflecting a blow. This charm may activated when the dancer successfully parries an attack allowing her to make an immediate counterattack against the opponent with a base damage equal to her current tempo value. She may additionally donate up to (Essence x2) initiative to fuel the damage of the attack. She does not reset after making this attack nor is her tempo affected - Only any initiative spent is lost. The dancer only needs to spend 1 point of willpower on this charm per round.

Mastery: The dancer reduces the cost of this charm by 2m per activation after the first to a minimum of 0m. This cost reduction is reset upon being hit (EX: An attack getting past your defense).

Terrestrial: The Dancer may only donate up to (Essence) initiative and may only activate this charm when she spends a turn forgoing an attack.

The Steel Devil prance through the air, leaving death in her wake. The character may use this charm to supplement a rush, adding one bonus die per tempo. If the rush is successful she is refunded the tempo expended and may automatically make an attack so long as she reaches the opponent at the start of her next turn (she may make one normal movement action before it counts as the “start” of her turn).

At Essence 3+ the dancer is in Steel Devil Form she may spend a +1 WP surcharge and at least 5 tempo (or your maximum dicecap) on this charm to activate Whirling Guillotine Dance. The dancer prances across the battlefield with her blades moving so fast that she’s but a mirage. She may rush a target out to medium range where if she succeeds on the rush she may immediately move two range brands towards her opponent and may move past any opponent without need of a disengage on the way to her primary opponent. She automatically attacks anyone coming into close range with her as if being attacked by form’s secondary attack. The dancer may take any initiative gained from these attacks and use it when she attacks the primary target with a decisive attack. If she does not make a decisive attack any initiative gained is lost.

With an X-scissor slash of her blades the very air itself becomes the Steel Devil’s weapon. Countless slashes rip through the air stripping flesh from bone. When activated this charm creates a decisive attack in an arc of force that extends out of medium range and carrying a damage equal to her current tempo pool. Against a battle group ignore any bonus they receive from size. This attack does not include the Exalt’s base initiative, nor does it reduce her to base initiative.

This charm may be used reflexively at the end of Seconds Between Strife or as a special counterattack when used in conjunction with Empty Mind Strike. For Seconds Between Strife she counts the damage of her attack before spending tempos for dice.

This attack may only be used once per scene. It may be reset upon successfully rushing someone with three threshold successes or parrying an attack by three or more defense.

Terrestrial: The dancer’s Sonic Slash only reaches out to short range.

The dancer pauses her momentary dance to elegantly crouch down, an immense wave of high pressure wind surrounding the area before she moves in an impossibly fast blur of speed, eviscerating all that stood near her. This charm may be activated upon a successful decisive attack allowing the dancer to make a withering attack as if were supplemented by Triple Attack Technique, even if she does not know it. If the dancer does know she instead uses Quadruple Attack Technique which instead of rerolling damage converts a similar amount of rerolled dice into automatic successes.

Everyone else within close range of the dancer is immediately subjected to a secondary attack as per Steel Devil Form’s rules but follow the damage rerolling rule for Triple Attack Technique, or Quadruple Attack Technique against Insignificant/Strong type opponents.

This charm may only be used once per scene, but may be reset upon making a successful Double Attack Technique chained into Steel Devil Strike/Cascading Iron Tempest.

The Steel Devil dancer blends together both beauty and death in a seamless and efficient fashion. When in Steel Devil Form the dancer may flurry a single performance based action per turn in addition to any other standard action and adds (Essence) bonus dice to any dance related actions. Additionally those unfamiliar with Steel Devil Style will not find anything threatening about the dancer at all so long as she takes no deliberate attacks.

Comment

1) There is a soak increasing charm in the style.
2) The new fluff demands flexibility, a mobility penalty ain't that.

It's a bit more fragile compared to things such as Mantis, Tiger, or Snake but its offensive power is way higher to compensate. Plus you don't need to reset initiative to make decisives, which is huge.

The dancer grasps a blade in each hand and makes a lightning speed draw - a technique designed for ending a fight before it starts. This charm supplements a join battle roll with any ability adding (2 or Essence, higher) automatic success to her roll. Additionally if the dancer wins her battle roll she may preemptively shift successes from her join battle result into her tempo pool (See the charm Battle Rhythm below). If she wins join battle she immediately gains a single point of tempo into her tempo pool.

Sidebar: What is the tempo Pool?
The dancer taps her feet in order to prepare a rhythm that beats in her soul for the upcoming battle, a tempo that pulses in her ears faster and faster until a rising crescendo finishes aloud in her ears. The tempo pool comes from the very rhythm of battle itself, a special resource that may be spent on charms of this style. Whenever the Dancer manages to damage an opponent she may convert up to (2 or Essence, whichever is higher) points of initiative into tempo for herself. The Dancer cannot store more than (Dexterity + Essence) charge unless stated otherwise in a charm’s text.

Same as the original as far as I can tell. Was fine before, is still fine now.

The Steel Devil stylist’s secret to defense is not using both swords at once to help defend, but rather sharing the burden of defense amongst two swords. The stylist may half any onslaught penalties to her defense and if she successfully parries an attack she may nullify the onslaught penalty she was supposed to take.

Mastery: The dancer may reduce the cost of this charm by 1m per time she activates this charm per round. If Steel Devil Form is up the 1i cost only needs to be paid once per round.

How does rounding work with this? If I have 1 point of onslaught, do I mitigate 1 or 0?
Either way, I feel like this is very underpowered. 3m1i can roughly be equated to 4m which comes out to +2 to your parry from an excellency. For this charm to provide parity you would need to be suffering from an onslaught penalty of -4(or -3?). For comparison, Revolving Crescent Defense would provide a whooping +8 to defense in that scenario, and that charm is merely 'okay'; it's with the Mastery effect that it goes into 'very good'. The "successful parry" bit doesn't really bridge that gap and is actually anti-synergistic with the idea of activating it multiple times per round as the Mastery effect encourages.
As you pointed out, it isn't necessary for it to be as strong as that charm or as strong as native charms but the difference here is too great.

Would you consider basing the amount of penalty negated on your current Tempo score? I feel like that would be thematic as well as easier to balance. If you're afraid of making it too powerful, you could make it cost 1 or 2 tempo: that way it's a strong defense which comes at the cost of necessarily slowing down your offense, plus being unavailable in certain circumstances (like right after a Cascading Iron Tempest).

The basis of offense for any Steel Devil, keeping a single opponent bombarded with blistering offense or becoming a dervish of death for those all around him. This charm is reflexive but may only be activated on the dancer’s turn. Upon activating this charm the dancer may activate a secondary attack against against a nearby opponent. This charm has one of two effects depending on when its used:

She may activate this charm after successfully landing an attack on an opponent but before damage is calculated. She may activate this charm to launch a second attack on the opponent which if she hits adds (Dexterity or Performance, lower) additional dice on the primary damage roll. Both of these attacks apply onslaught as normal.

She may activate this charm to make a secondary withering attack on a nearby target that has a base damage of ([Dexterity or Performance, lower] + tempo/2) or full damage on Insignificant/Strong type opponents. The attack is soaked as normal and does not reward the dancer with any additional initiative unless you crash someone. Any charms/evocations used to supplement the main roll do not apply on the second.

The dancer may repurchase this charm at Martial Arts 5 Essence 3 in order to unlock Triple Attack Technique. This special technique can only be activated when the stylist is in Steel Devil Form which allows the dancer to reroll up to (Essence) damage dice per threshold success from either hit.

Now this. This is the good stuff. Steel Devil's biggest issue was the fact that its most iconic charm was horribly unreliable and this is an elegant alternative. Just a few things however:
It is strange to me that the same-target use is not dependent on your tempo. I felt that was an important part of the whole 'ramping up' aspect.
On either use, are you supposed to receive the +1i from landing a successful withering attack?
Am I correct in assuming that you'd need to pay for excellencies separately for the second attack roll? Would instant-type defensive charms (such as a defense boost from an excellency) used in response to the first attack roll affect the defense value for the second attack?
Does Triple Attack Technique need a third attack roll to proc or is it automatic? Your wording suggests the latter. Also, does it mean that if I get 3 extra successes, I can reroll (Essence x3) damage dice? If so, that's way too much.
I find it clunky that Double, Triple and Quadruple Attack all have different effects (add dice, reroll dice, turn dice into successes). It'd be better to just stack the base effect in my opinion.

With her twin blades as her partners the dancer assumes the ballet of the Steel Devil, dispatching foes as swiftly as she changes grips on her blades. Upon assuming this form the dancer increases the defense bonus provided by her weapons to +1 or if her weapons already have such a thing increases her defense by +1. Secondly she may make a secondary attack with the same rules outlined in Double Attack Technique for free every single round. Activating Double Attack Technique in while in the form against a single target allows the Dancer to not just make a secondary weaker attack, but reroll her attack roll entirely for a +1WP surcharge and not pay the cost of any charms again on the secondary attack (minus excellencies). She adds +2 to her tempo score and the maximum cap she is allowed to have for tempo and increases this value by 1 each time she crashes an opponent (once per opponent per scene). Lastly she ignores all off-hand penalties with her weapon. As an interesting side note the Dancer may learn the Ambidextrous merit after having known this form for at least a year paying the normal XP cost for doing so, many often do.

A dancer may reflexively assume this form whenever she manages to crash an opponent.

Terrestrial: The stylist needs to repay the cost of any charms.

First effect's fine, we clearly don't need Dual Slaying Stance passive parry 9 coming back.
Does the second effect allow you to stack Double Attacks or is it functionally just making Double Attack Technique free? If the latter, why not just change it to that?
Rerolling the entire attack pool after roll for only 3m1w is absolutely nuts. The only effect that does that comes from an Essence 3 high-tier Solar Melee charm and even that is more costly and limited to clashes. This is certainly too much.
Also, this definitely feels like 10m, not 8m.
Honestly vanilla Steel Devil Form plus the parry effect and a slight cost increase would have been just fine. Less is more; this version is too complicated.
If left as-is, you should bump it up to Essence 2 at least.

Death follows swiftly after the strike of a Steel Devil dancer, their strike only revealed as a feint as an immediate killing blow rains down upon the opponent. This charm may be activated upon a successful withering attack, allowing the dancer to make a decisive attack with a damage equal to the initiative reaped from the withering attack. If this charm is activated a successful Double Attack Technique (or form attack) on the opponent then the attack ignores hardness equal to the dancer’s current tempo. It does not reset the dancer’s current initiative.

The Dancer may repurchase this charm at Essence 3+ in order to unlock Cascading Iron Tempest, a special version of Steel Devil Strike that may only be used after performing a successful Double Attack Technique whose damage is equal to or greater than the remaining tempo left to be filled or after a Steel Devil Strike that does at least half the wielder’s current tempo in damage. This version instead expends tempo in order fuel the damage for the attack on a one-per-one basis. If the dancer expends all of her charge with this attack the damage is increased by (Essence) bonus dice.

Mastery: When in Steel Devil form and the user successfully damages her opponent with this attack she regains her point of temporary willpower. This includes Cascading Iron Tempest.

This one's fine. I like it better that the original. Do you need to pay 4m1w again when chaining Steel Devil Strike into Cascading Iron Tempest? If so, can the Mastery effect refund you willpower on both?

Just as an attack moves past the dancer’s first blade the second comes to intercept at the last moment. This charm upgrades Twin-Blade Defense, allowing her to spend up to (Dexterity or Performance) tempo in order to increase her soak on a one-per-one basis. If she spends her maximum possible bonus she adds an additional (Essence/2) soak to her total.

Mastery: The dancer may pay 2i 1WP to immediately activate this feature after being hit but before damage is rolled. This cannot be used while in crash.

Look, I agree the vanilla version was too crazy but you went too far the other way. This is way too weak. 1 tempo is worth slightly more than 1 initiative, and 1 point of soak will ideally prevent 1 die of withering damage and so preserve on average 0.5i. So paying 1i for 0.5i is just getting ripped off. Plus making it a Soak-based effect instead of Parry-based feels weird and not very thematic.

I have two ideas on this one:
First, just keep the vanilla version but change its cost to 4m and 2 tempo per point of Parry, and make it Perilous. Really the only problem with the original was how stupid cheap it was compared to other initiative based effects or even the excellency. Post-roll defenses are strong, so they should have a cost to match.
Second, make it remove dice of damage post calculation at the cost of tempo. Sort of a HGD or Death-Parrying Stroke lite. More expensive for decisive damage. Keeps the same feel of last-second defense while based on solid tested effects. I still like the first idea better though.

The Devil’s Dancer learns how to strike without thought, her body seamlessly weaving into a counterattack after deflecting a blow. This charm may activated when the dancer successfully parries an attack allowing her to make an immediate counterattack against the opponent with a base damage equal to her current tempo value. She may additionally donate up to (Essence x2) initiative to fuel the damage of the attack. She does not reset after making this attack nor is her tempo affected - Only any initiative spent is lost. The dancer only needs to spend 1 point of willpower on this charm per round.

Mastery: The dancer reduces the cost of this charm by 2m per activation after the first to a minimum of 0m. This cost reduction is reset upon being hit (EX: An attack getting past your defense).

Terrestrial: The Dancer may only donate up to (Essence) initiative and may only activate this charm when she spends a turn forgoing an attack.

Wow. This is a sizable, non-limited, non-reseting, free reflexive decisive attack. Aside from paying the cost there is literally no downside to using this charm at every opportunity to double or more your attack-output. There's a very good reason that all of the comparable effects in the game (OG Dual Slaying Stance, Ready in Eight Directions Stance and Crane Form) require you to forgo your action for the turn.

As it is it should either cost you an action (either making it simple or losing your next action) or have a once per scene limit. The recent condition could be fairly easy; something like expending your charge and building back up to a certain level.

The Steel Devil prance through the air, leaving death in her wake. The character may use this charm to supplement a rush, adding one bonus die per tempo. If the rush is successful she is refunded the tempo expended and may automatically make an attack so long as she reaches the opponent at the start of her next turn (she may make one normal movement action before it counts as the “start” of her turn).

At Essence 3+ the dancer is in Steel Devil Form she may spend a +1 WP surcharge and at least 5 tempo (or your maximum dicecap) on this charm to activate Whirling Guillotine Dance. The dancer prances across the battlefield with her blades moving so fast that she’s but a mirage. If she succeeds on the rush she may immediately move two range brands towards her opponent and may move past any opponent without need of a disengage on the way to her primary opponent. She automatically attacks anyone coming into close range with her as if being attacked by form’s secondary attack. The dancer may take any initiative gained from these attacks and use it when she attacks the primary target with a decisive attack. If she does not make a decisive attack any initiative gained is lost.

Terrestrial: The dancer cannot use Whirling Guillotine Dance

This is great. Making it dice instead of successes is definitely the smart thing to do, and the potentially free attack makes it crazy worth it.
The upgrade effect is obviously ripping off Countless Strikes Sheathed and I am perfectly okay with that. No reason Single Point should have a monopoly on cool hyper-speed sword shenanigans.

Just have to point out, you would never be able to actually move the full two range bands unless you had used a separate effect to rush from a distance greater than normal (and that's just solars plus 1 horribly-hamstrung DB charm).

With an X-scissor slash of her blades the very air itself becomes the Steel Devil’s weapon. Countless slashes rip through the air stripping flesh from bone. When activated this charm creates a decisive attack in an arc of force that extends out of medium range and carrying a damage equal to her current tempo pool. Against a battle group ignore any bonus they receive from size. This attack does not include the Exalt’s base initiative, nor does it reduce her to base initiative.

This charm may be used reflexively at the end of Seconds Between Strife or as a special counterattack when used in conjunction with Empty Mind Strike. For Seconds Between Strife she counts the damage of her attack before spending tempos for dice.

Terrestrial: The dancer’s Sonic Slash only reaches out to short range.

Same actual effect, with a far less clunky activation condition. I approve. That said, again with the non-reseting decisives: the at-will version of this should either be scene-limited or cost you some of your tempo.

The dancer pauses her momentary dance to elegantly crouch down, an immense wave of high pressure wind surrounding the area before she moves in an impossibly fast blur of speed, eviscerating all that stood near her. This charm may be activated upon a successful decisive attack allowing the dancer to make a withering attack as if were supplemented by Triple Attack Technique, even if she does not know it. If the dancer does know she instead uses Quadruple Attack Technique which instead of rerolling damage converts a similar amount of rerolled dice into automatic successes.

Everyone else within close range of the dancer is immediately subjected to a secondary attack as per Steel Devil Form’s rules but follow the damage rerolling rule for Triple Attack Technique, or Quadruple Attack Technique against Insignificant/Strong type opponents.

This charm may only be used once per scene, but may be reset upon making a successful Double Attack Technique chained into Steel Devil Strike/Cascading Iron Tempest.

A bit confusingly-worded, but I like it a lot. My only gripe is the above-mentioned Quadruple Attack inconsistency. And why the 2i? Seems to me like 10m1w is already plenty expensive enough.

The Mastery effect stumped me though. As you wrote it Steel Devil Strike can be used after any successful withering attack, but the fact that this effect explicitly allows it means that otherwise you couldn't do it...?

The Steel Devil dancer blends together both beauty and death in a seamless and efficient fashion. When in Steel Devil Form the dancer may flurry a single performance based action per turn in addition to any other standard action and adds (Essence) bonus dice to any dance related actions. Additionally those unfamiliar with Steel Devil Style will not find anything threatening about the dancer at all so long as she takes no deliberate attacks.

Terrestrial: Add (Essence/2) bonus dice instead.

You do know that I'm going to abuse this together with Penultimate Unity of Form, Soul Voice, Battle Dancer Method and Battle Anthem of the Solar Exalted to dance the world to death right? And it will all be your fault.

I suppose the reason Iron Lotus Unfurling isn't here is that you cut it for space. Is than right? Shame, since it was a cool name.

Wooo boy, that took me way longer than it should. Getting the flu during spring is the worst. All in all though, I tip my non-existent hat to you. I'm certainly going to look for chances to use this in a game at some point.

Comment

I admit that the charm is a bit tricky to balance. IMO the styles in the corebook are in need or revisions as they were written in a time when the Solar Charmset was very different (Did you know that Hungry Tiger Technique worked when your opponent was not crashed and only cost a single mote? Damn that was fun). I didn’t want to make it as strong as Revolving Crescent as I feel that White Reaper should have the spot as top army killer/being outnumbered style, so I wanted to try and compensate.

As for reducing penalty score by an amount equal to Tempo, I don’t want to do that. I’ve learned that lesson from Alchemicals in that it often drives players nuts when fighting against something that does, but halving the penalties allows for some chance IF you breach their defense. Making it cost tempo could be a thing, but another charm in the style does it later on.

If you think this is overcosted I could remove the initiative cost or lower the mote cost by one. I mean I made a similar charm to this in my Blazing Lotus martial art and in the playtests it worked out pretty well, or I can link the cost deduction to being in the form with mastery always having it (Though this dramatically increases its power I think it could still be within limits).

Double Attack Technique

I thought about using tempo for some of the damage, such as (DEX+TEMPO) but then I recalled the horrors my Alchemical inflicted when she actually procced Double Attack, the damage values were absurd. I’m comfortable with it being a lite version of Striking Cobra or Liquid Steel Flow. The fact that this charm’s secondary attack can force a reroll of your primary attack for a single WP is pretty good, as if you want to use a manual decisive then you’ll probably land it.

Excellencies need to be paid separately for the second attack yes, though TBH I could honestly include it for free if using against the same opponent as you’re just attacking for a damage buff anywho.

Double Attack Technique on a single opponent gives a bonus to damage, but my intent was that it’s a second attack roll for all intents and purposes. Defense charms need to be activated twice and likewise nasty things like Crane counterattacking you twice also happens.

Triple Attack Technique doesn’t give you a third attack, rather is a damage buff to keep up to parity at Essence 3. If you successfully gain the Double Attack Technique damage bonus you can then reroll (Essence) failed dice in the damage roll. Quad attack doesn’t reroll and just straight up gives you automatic successes (Kinda, I mean it doesn’t if every die is a success but if that happens then you probably should’ve bought a lottery ticket that day). I could do something like double = current, Triple = DEX+(Tempo/2), Quad = DEX+TEMPO but seeing what my Alchemical did in the original without mastery effects it kind of makes me leery.

Form

Yea it should make Double Attack free, I’ll just do that. I don’t want to bring the mote discount back, I’d rather just bake it into the charms themselves.

There’s a main problem with rerolling your attack: You get fuckall for it. Any Steel Devil Strikes you make will probably have a hard time bypassing hardness as your damage pools are going to be much lower. The only way I don’t see it being crap is if you duel wield grand Daiklaves (Monkey King Grip HHHOOO!) As for the reroll mechanic I figured it made since as you have another sword and doesn’t make the second attack feel like nothing is happening. I mean this REALLY shines on clashing rolls so I could just limit it to that. I mean if I have to ditch it I can, I’ll bring it back for the expanded MA project that’ll never be completed in the works.

STEEL DEVIL STRIKE

Yes you do need to pay 4m 1WP again to chain into Cascading Iron Tempest, but it shares the mastery. Meaning if you Steel Devil Strike and are successful you get your WP back and if you chain into Iron Tempest and succeed you get that WP back too.

CROSS BLADE CATCH

Fighting a Crane Stylist made me want to kill myself, so I think I’ll go with option two. I was thinking of actually doing that but was worried about it being way too strong for an MA (See what crap Ebon Shadow has to go through). I’ll make the base effect withering only where you spend tempo to negate damage on a 1:1 conversion rate while the decisive version requires you to spend tempo then roll it to see if the damage is negated.

I mean I could do the parry increaser but that still makes me leery.

EMPTY MIND STRIKE

When making this I was working off the idea of “Attacks, attacks everywhere”. This is essentially the same counterattack as the defensive Steel Devil Style form only in charm form. I’ll probably just make this charm 6m 1WP simple then. I think the WP charge is fair because unlike Ri8D you’re not going to normally reset and that’s a hell of a drug.

Originally I was going to have this charm trigger an reflexive attack whenever someone moved into close range of you, but I liked counterattacking more.

SECONDS BETWEEN STRIFE

I’ll add in the ability to make a rush out to medium range with Whirling Guillotine Dance then.

SONIC SLASH

The original didn’t have a reset condition but it did have some specific activation conditions. I’m fine making this once per scene that’s reset upon successfully rushing with Seconds Between Strife and/or parrying attack by three or more successes.

DERVISH BLADE FRENZY

Can you say how its poorly worded? To me I see no problems, but I’m blind to my own issues. I’d like to know where I can improve clarity.

The 2i is deliberately. You can use this after a normal decisive attack… but do you know what your reset value is after a successful decisive attack? I put the 2i on purpose because if you fuck this up then you’re in deep shit.

The mastery form is for linking attacks. With this style you can do Double/Triple Attack -> Steel Devil Strike -> Cascading Iron Tempest -> Dervish Blade Frenzy -> Steel Devil Strike/Cascading Iron Tempest. It’s not the Melee omnislash but I think it does a good job of fucking up anything that moves.

DANCE IT OUT ALL NIGHT LONG!

Note the keywords.

You can combine it with battle dancer sure, go ahead. I was going to remake it into something less stupid eventually anyways. Otherwise enjoy the same defense bonus the old style gave for even cheaper cost DDD

Iron Lotus was left out as I felt the style was long enough. I wanted to focus the style into making multi-attacks so I felt it was a bit left out of place and ditched it. I’ll be bringing it back when I get around to my MA project, if ever.

Seconds Between Strife: Added text allowing one to rush out to medium range.

Sonic Slash: Added reset condition

Upon closer look at what you mean with Cross Blade Catch I can see what you mean BadassOverlord . I can definately put the effect in but I'm worried about stacking too much. I mean we already have a defense charm that halves defense penalties and conditional onslaught removal. I'm worried if that'd stack too much with a post roll parry adder. I thought adding soak would work as Dreaming Pearl has a similar mechanic while Mantis/Sidereal charms allow you to add parry to soak (Sidereals aren't out yet but I'll bet money they'll charm back in Impeding the Flow), so I thought the design space there would be solid while providing another bonus (The low soak you'll have).